Weekend Bookworm: The Toe Tag Quintet

07 February 2013 , 11:56 AM by Rob Minshull

The Toe Tag Quintet by Matthew Condon

A hardened Sydney homicide detective has retired to the Gold Coast in search of some peace and quiet. Unfortunately, quite a few of the dangerous criminals he once arrested are also attracted by the idea of spending their golden years by the beach. The result is what ABC Radio National recently referred to as crime fiction that basks in the sun!

The Toe Tag Quintet by Matthew Condon is a superb collection of five stories, plenty of scores for an old cop to settle and new crimes that he just can't leave alone. Along the way, we are treated to adventures involving one of Queensland's most celebrated artists, the state's violent and convict past, tales of corruption past and present, and beautiful stories hidden in libraries and people's memories.

The detective himself is never named but his anonymity is no barrier to lack of character. Never one to put his brain in gear before opening his mouth, the old cop is, as Condon puts it, "opinionated, rude, crude, boorish, childish, thuggish and oafish. He has no etiquette filter. He is profoundly sarcastic and tremendously cynical. He rails against ageing but still thinks he's twenty years old. He gets diced, sliced, shot, thumped and hurled, but he still bounces back."

He is also tolerated by his long-suffering but sardonic wife Peg, who has "never really grasped the dangers of my previous employment as a police office ... She seemed to think that cleaning the streets of criminal vermin, putting life and limb at risk, and getting shot were things men did to let off a little steam and satisfy something in their primitive natures."

Above all else though, The Toe Tag Quintet - initially published as summer short stories in The Courier-Mail - is a selection of tales with an incredible sense of place. Matt Condon is simply brilliant poking fun at south-east Queensland and what he refers to as its "malevolent alter ego", at the fabled small-town mentality and the legacy of corruption. His version, and vision, of our corner of the state is both witty and sophisticated: for the criminals and those on their trail who have made the move north of the NSW border, "the brighter the light, the darker the shadow".

"Up here,' writes Condon "people wait for more than ten minutes in traffic and they call it gridlock. They can have fresh seafood, steaks as big as hubcaps, and they question the size of the bills. They can park in the CBD without having to put a second mortgage on the house, can enjoy some of the greatest natural beaches on earth and winter lasts for half an hour ... And still they grizzle."

But times are changing. In the third story in the book, Murder on the Vine, the unnamed detective is investigating the death of his old friend Zim, a restaurant critic. Zim, who returned to his hometown of Brisbane after 30 years in Sydney, discovers a culinary transformation: "Brisbane was no longer a place where the year's gastronomic highlight was the arrival of the frozen dim sim."

Murder and mayhem are never far beneath the surface, however, because "when towns like Brisbane started moving, the sharks [can] smell blood in the water." For Condon, the development of Queensland's capital city has journeyed hand-in-hand with the state's long-standing relationship with - or perhaps even affection for - corruption.

"Cities on the make don't lose their small-town endearments," he writes. "Brisbane is a place that has known corruption. Has lived it. It's in the soil. It's also a place, despite its explosive growth and grand vision, which as gossip and tittle-tattle as its bedrock. People here still talk over the back fence."

Indeed, Queensland's historic and collective reluctance to stand up to those who abuse their authority is explored through an astonishing story about Captain Patrick Logan. Whether it is ugly landmarks, poor driving skills or vicious humidity, throughout the wonderful stories in The Toe Tag Quintet there are tongue-in-cheek observations about Queensland and its people that linger like the taste of a bitter lemon drink on a hot summer's day.

"Cosmopolitanism in one town can be seen as ignorance and idiocy in another. Not everything translates. If the premier uses the wrong cutlery in a fine dining restaurant here, it's news the next day."

There are some great writers in Brisbane these days. People like Nick Earls, John Birmingham, Stephen M. Irwin and James Moloney write beautiful stories which resonate far beyond this corner of south-east Queensland. Matt Condon is such an eloquent observer and such an amazing storyteller that The Toe Tag Quintet, together with his earlier novel, The Trout Opera, does nothing more than confirm his brilliance. This is a writer of whom we should rightly be proud to call one of our own.